warhammer 40k: rogue trader

[Gorth]

11 hours ago, melkathi said:

In 40k, even the one xenos is stretching the plausible.

In the olden days, before the lore got fleshed out and altered into what is now, a couple of aliens would have been easier to justify.

I would have liked to have seen a squat, a ratling, or an ogryn among the companions.

Squats, Ogryns and Ratlings aren't technically "aliens". Rogue traders are mostly above the law (what The Inquisition doesn't know...), so they employ a number of questionable individuals, like Eldarii snipers, renegade Astartes, even complements of regular Astartes when their purposes coincide, unsanctioned psykers, mutants etc.

They trade with most races when profitable, from Orks to T'au (unofficially of course), stopping just short of what Inquistitors of the Radical factions do, having pet possessed demon hosts

 

The Blood Axe Ork clan is well supplied with Imperial equipment, from Rhino pattern troop transports to military fatigues (that is way too small for them). They probably sold them basic tactics 101 books too (the Ikea kind, with lots of pictures).

[melkathi]

In the 80s Blood Axe Orks could get human mercenary mobs who were Imperial Guard units dressed up as mercenaries so the Imperium could deny involvement and the Orks wouldn't know they were being manipulated.

[Gorth]

29 minutes ago, melkathi said:

In the 80s Blood Axe Orks could get human mercenary mobs who were Imperial Guard units dressed up as mercenaries so the Imperium could deny involvement and the Orks wouldn't know they were being manipulated.

I had a Blood Axe Klan in the old Epic40k... complete with Rhino transports and Landraider tanks (stuff that is only available to Space Marines today)

That and my Kult of Speed were responsible for outflanking maneuvers... except the Kult usually fell apart on the halfway distance, their vehicles disintegrating without any enemy intervention. But they were fast! (because they were painted red)

[melkathi]

Did you play in the time when orks had to roll for each mob before battle to see if they were sober enough to show up?

[Keyrock]

On 6/19/2023 at 3:08 AM, Gorth said:

But they were fast! (because they were painted red)

Everybody knows the red uns go faster.

Edited June 20, 2023 by Keyrock

[Gorth]

2 hours ago, melkathi said:

Did you play in the time when orks had to roll for each mob before battle to see if they were sober enough to show up?

It wasn't a thing in Epic... and I never played 40k Orks

edit: I played Imperial Guard exclusively in 40k

 

[ShadySands]

Tried to leave it until release or at least more beta patches but

Going to try play hereticus this time

[Bartimaeus]

Warhammer 40,000: Xenos by Dan Abnett. I don't know whether to post this in the reading thread or here.

It was pretty decent, but a little rough around the edges in a couple of ways. For an introduction to Warhammer 40,000, you could do so much worse. The book stayed quite focused on the story local to our characters rather than doing any big world/setting dumps, which would be the absolute worst thing you could do to someone new to a truly gargantuan series like Warhammer. My biggest complaint: characters that weren't Gregory Eisenhorn started to feel a bit...telegraphed and perfunctory. When Bequin was introduced, I was like "oh sweet, this lady's awesome, she should be great for the rest of the series!"...but then she almost entirely disappears from the book except for when she's going to be used for her abilities. Every time she was mentioned, I started to think "guess they're going to need her for something pretty soon here...aaand yep, there it is". Hey, this isn't a video game: if you're going to introduce a character (especially one that I like), you need to take the time to actually write out and include them! I started noticing what felt like similar patterns with other characters like Betancore and Aemos. I'm also not so sure that everyone in the core group really needs to be written so similarly as Toughdudes McStrongmans. Hell, by the end of the book, even Bequin was apparently an ace shooter, and that's absolutely absurd given the relatively short timeframe and everyone else having spent decades (or more!) honing their craft. But otherwise, I thought it was a fairly enjoyable romp.

Edited June 27, 2023 by Bartimaeus
I coloned twice in the same sentence? Goodness me.

[uuuhhii]

On 6/26/2023 at 8:11 AM, ShadySands said:

Tried to leave it until release or at least more beta patches but

Going to try play hereticus this time

is there any way to turn to chaos god in beta yet

[melkathi]

Abnett has that issue with every book series it seems. Even Gaunts Ghosts, if you ignore the characters who turn generic ****bags, everyone else turns generic awesome veteran guardsman

[Gorth]

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

when Bequin was introduced, I was like "oh sweet, this lady's awesome, she should be great for the rest of the series!"

She actually got her own series. Two volumes, Pariah and Penitent. Lots of intrigue and mystery and a possible reconciliation between Gregor and Gideon? (Ravenor). It's been so many years since I read the Eisenhorn trilogy, that I've forgotten much of the details. Must have been very early 2000's...

[Bartimaeus]

1 hour ago, melkathi said:

Abnett has that issue with every book series it seems. Even Gaunts Ghosts, if you ignore the characters who turn generic ****bags, everyone else turns generic awesome veteran guardsman

See, that's exactly what I didn't want to hear. Characters with weaknesses (their unwise way of approaching situations, bizarre idiosyncrasies that can blow up in their face, strict limitations that they're never going to get past but will find smart ways of working around as necessary, explicit vulnerabilities that they can feasibly be exploited or felled by, potentially fatal character flaws that make them unsuited for their environment - all of these and more!) are almost always far more interesting and memorable than the "I am awesome at everything" types...especially if you can really work those quirks and details into strong character writing that actually matters for your story. You know, characters should be...well, characters! Particularly for books, where there's so much more opportunity to flesh them out in comparison to a movie or miniseries. Heck, if you're clever, you'll find ways to turn what are usually weaknesses into key strengths in appropriate situations. I thought Bequin's introduction was great, it really made her seem like she would be very different from everyone else...but no, she kind just gets moulded into the same amorphous tough dude blob that everyone else already started out as. Hmph. Given my tastes in film, perhaps reading books rather explicitly made for men about men is not the best idea on my part.

1 hour ago, Gorth said:

She actually got her own series. Two volumes, Pariah and Penitent. Lots of intrigue and mystery and a possible reconciliation between Gregor and Gideon? (Ravenor). It's been so many years since I read the Eisenhorn trilogy, that I've forgotten much of the details. Must have been very early 2000's...

We'll see if I ever get around to it. melkathi's words do not fill with great anticipation.

Edited June 27, 2023 by Bartimaeus

[melkathi]

Melkathi is known to be an overly critical grumpy person

Last 40K books I really enjoyed were the Calpurnia ones.

[Bartimaeus]

Just now, melkathi said:

Melkathi is known to be an overly critical grumpy person

Last 40K books I really enjoyed were the Calpurnia ones.

Bartimaeus is known to be, and has been called, much worse than that, . If I'm already bothered by these things in the first book, guarantee I'll be positively seething about it by the end of the third book if it doesn't get any better.

[melkathi]

Gaunt's Ghosts should probably have stopped with the third book.  But it went on for another three and another three. And some characters get killed off and others have their personal story arc resolved, because personal story arcs can only last so many books. And then the characters are no longer interesting and you read the books out of habit.

Edited June 27, 2023 by melkathi

[Gorth]

1 hour ago, melkathi said:

Gaunt's Ghosts should probably have stopped with the third book.  But it went on for another three and another three. And some characters get killed off and others have their personal story arc resolved, because personal story arcs can only last so many books. And then the characters are no longer interesting and you read the books out of habit.

For me, it's a toss up between 'First & Only' or 'Necropolis' (book 1 & 3). Milo still features in books succeeding the ghosts. That is, various books covering The Sabbath Crusade, including my current reading material, The Magister and The Martyr. Anakwar Sek Whose Voice Drowns All Others! is an interesting villain, which you get to see way to little of until the very end).

Edit: really just in a few cameo roles

 

Edit2: As for what my favourite recent 40k books are, that is actually a wh30k novel, "The Buried Dagger" and a... not a crime drama, but one not featuring space marines "The Wraithbone Phoenix". The latter is about a ratling and his ogryn friend, who're eking out a living in a scrapyard, where old decommissioned starships gets salvaged. All the while pulling off cons and scams to make extra credits (they're fugitive deserters from the Imperial Guard and have a bounty on their heads). The ogryn is one of those subjected to cognitive enhancement surgery and is both surprisingly smart and philosophical. Sometimes that is.

[melkathi]

Necropolis was a good book. And I think the fact that the book about the fall of Calth basically is a copy of that style, shows how popular it was. (Also that to get quality into the Horus heresy, Abnett had to copy the style of one of his old books)

[Gorth]

7 hours ago, melkathi said:

Necropolis was a good book. And I think the fact that the book about the fall of Calth basically is a copy of that style, shows how popular it was. (Also that to get quality into the Horus heresy, Abnett had to copy the style of one of his old books)

Black Library books are a bit like the old Dragonlance books, D&D books, Forgotten Realms books, you name it. Some are good, some are bad, some are getting close to great reads and some... you grind through because of sheer dogged determination to not give up something you started. Even though it would’ve been the sensible thing to do

[melkathi]

I got through that terrible Abnett There Are No Wolves On Fenris debacle just because a friend dared me to count the number of times he used the phrase "wet leopard growl".

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

16 hours ago, melkathi said:

I got through that terrible Abnett There Are No Wolves On Fenris debacle just because a friend dared me to count the number of times he used the phrase "wet leopard growl".

Well how many times did he use the phrase "wet leopard growl"?

[melkathi]

6 wet leopard growls,

1 laughter like a wet leopard growl

3 wet growls that reminded the protagonist of a leopard,

1 leopard growl,

1 he chuckled a wet leopard chuckled

1 leopard purr

1 wet leopard purr

1 frothing wet leopard purr

I may have missed some of my notes

 

 

All these describe the sounds space wolves do, similar to the hmm Henry Cavil does in the Witcher

[bugarup]

...why such a specific description? Do wet leopards growl differently than dry leopards?

[melkathi]

The author later apologized for the book and cited health reasons for the low quality.

Apparently he really was deathly ill, but nobody knew wet leopard growls were a symptom.

[melkathi]

It was the deep, reverberative throat-growl of a leopard.

 

I Really got you interested in reading Horus heresy books now, admit it.

 

[bugarup]

Not me, but you got me interested in looking up leopard growl, and it appears that they growl just like other big cats. Although those in videos all were dry...so, uh, anyone willing to throw a bucket of water at a leopard for science?